4 Smartphone Apps That Can Fatten Your Wallet

According to Mobi Thinking, a mobile marketing site, around 1.2 billion people used apps in 2012; by 2017, the number of users is projected to increase to 4.4 billion. There are tens of millions of apps to choose from, and these days, there’s an app for almost everything. Cooking, dieting, gaming, shopping — you name it.

You can shell out a large chunk of change on app purchases, particularly for games. However, you can also use apps to increase the amount of cash in the bank. People are picking up on this trend as rewards apps like Shopkick and Viggle reach more and more users. Millions of people use Viggle to earn rewards points for watching TV and listening to music.

This list of apps contains a wide variety of user favorites. Choices range from a budgeting app to choices that pay you for something you’re good at. Each of these apps can help increase the amount of cash in your pocket.

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1. Pact

This app not only promotes healthy living, it also helps you earn some extra cash. That is, if you fulfill your commitments. Pact is made up of a community of users seeking incentive for exercising and eating the right foods. To gain this motivation, users make a pact to stick to a certain diet or workout regimen. If a user breaks his or her pact, that person has to pay a certain amount of money, which goes to other app users. If a user meets his or her goals, which are verified by GPS and photos, that person receives a monetary weekly reward.

Pact advertises that you can “earn cash for living healthy, paid by members who don’t.” Just how much cash? According to CNET, you don’t have to pay any upfront payment, and you can set your “penalty” amount in increments of $5. So if you didn’t run a mile a day, for instance, you have to pay whatever penalty you set for yourself. If you meet your goal of running a mile per day, you can earn around $2 per week.